Scoot over Smart Devices: The Invisible Costs of Rental Scooters

Abstract

In the past year, transportation rental companies, including Bird, Lime, and Spin, have dropped hundreds of thousands of rental scooters across North America. Relying on mobile apps and scooter-mounted GPS units, these devices have access to a wide-variety of consumer data, including location, phone number, phone metadata, and more. Pairing corroborated phone and scooter GPS data with a last-mile transportation business model, scooter companies are able to collect a unique, highly identifying dataset on users. Data collected by these companies can be utilized by internal researchers or sold to advertisers and data brokers. Access to so much consumer data, however, poses serious security risks. ­Although Bird, Lime, and Spin posit electric scooters as environmentally friendly and accessible transportation, they also allow for unethical uses of user data through vaguely-worded terms of service. To promote more equitable transportation practices, this article will explore the implications of dockless scooter geotracking, as well as related infrastructure, privacy, and data security ramifications.